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It’s Only Words

There are (have been) a lot of memorable advertising tag lines that sum up the benefit or message from the commercial.

Think of –

‘Probably the best lager in the world’

Avis – ‘We try harder’

Nike – ‘Just do it’

And – ‘Go to work on an egg’

With all the smart people working in advertising you’d think that they could come up with something a bit more persuasive for drink advertising than ‘Please drink responsibly’ and ‘Drink aware’. The two alternative endings to seeing blokes sloshing beer around like idiots or a supermarket advertising buy ‘one gin get one free’. They both appear in tiny letters!

Of course the whole point of the ad is to get you necking as much hooligan soup as possible – so it’s not surprising that the ‘don’t get trollied’ government message isn’t too creative.

If the Health Department were less po faced they’d insist that the tag line to drink ads was something like ‘If you get pissed every night you’re really going to fuck up your liver’. They would then make sure a photo of a diseased organ was prominent on the label (a la fag packets).

Similarly on gambling ads they’d chuck the insipid and laughable ‘I gamble responsibly’ and ‘when the fun stops, stop’ in favour of ‘Don’t be a twat with your dosh – you fucking Muppet’.

Or maybe Ray could say “I’m being bunged a load to do this – do you really think I’m gonna piss it away on some nag?”

The same Department are bringing in a sugar tax on soft drinks, although not until 2018 for some reason. I’d add the tag line to the bottles and cans – ‘Don’t you have a mirror, you fat bastard?’ and have a reflective panel that works like the mirrors in a fun fair.

And just in case any civil servant thinks they can nick my lines – be aware they are copyrighted! So pinch them responsibly.